The Gazette offers audio versions of articles using Instaread. Some words may be mispronounced.

IOWA CITY — The Johnson County Sheriff’s Office has continued a pretrial GPS monitoring pilot program that started in August 2022 . The program’s goal was to keep people out of jail pending trials, which has allowed them to maintain jobs, education and treatment while also reducing jail numbers.

The first-of-its-kind pretrial electronic monitoring program in the state was modeled after one in Pitt County, N.C., which saved that county about $1.2 million a year in daily jail costs.

Johnson County Sheriff Brad Kunkel, County Attorney Rachel Zimmermann Smith, a judge and others in 2022 visited the North Carolina county to talk with program officials there about their electronic monitoring and

See Full Page